This housework gig isn't all that bad

Several of the customers have asked how I'm getting along as a full-time housekeeper.

They're talking about the pact I made with my partner last November when I cut back to one column a week instead of three. The agreement was that she would keep working, win all the bread and pay all the bills, and I'd be two-thirds retired and do the housework.

Such as cleaning up the kitchen after supper, and making the bed, and doing laundry, and keeping the premises reasonably neat.

This arrangement has been in effect now for seven months, and I will say this: I'm not exactly sorry I entered into the contract, but I do notice that my partner likes it a good deal better than I do.

She seems to hum a lot, and whistle, when she goes off all dressed up to one of her business meetings, leaving me with a double sinkful of dirty dishes.

And she brags on me way too much, telling me over and over what a good job I'm doing. But I can recognize false praise. She just wants to make sure I don't revolt, take off my apron and quit.

I've always helped around the house, sometimes, and I've never minded that, but doing it every day gets mighty regular. You don't even get Saturday and Sunday off.

One of my discoveries is that I don't like to run the vacuum cleaner. This surprised me because I've run vacuums a lot. But now I'm tired of it already. I hate that whining noise, and moving furniture to clean underneath it is a pain.

At our house I need to vacuum every day, or at least sweep, because we have this indoor dog and she's a yellow Labrador and she sheds hair like you wouldn't believe me if I told you.

When this dog lies in silence on the rug you might think she is simply sleeping, but the fact is she is busy growing hair. Which she is able to shed in secret ways so that it collects in fuzzy globs beneath beds and tables. And on the seats of cushioned chairs, so when company comes they depart with a display of yellow hair on their bottoms where you can't very well brush it off.

I bet I could stuff a queen-size mattress with the hair I've vacuumed up the past seven months. And all off one dog. Is there a market for dog hair?

While I've got you, I also want to talk about refrigerators. Since I began keeping house, I've devoted some thought and energy to refrigerator design.

We bought this new fridge for the old country house at Winedale, because heaven knows it needed one. It's a popular brand made by a huge corporation. It cost several hundred bucks and I wish we hadn't bought it because in my judgment as a housekeeper it's designed poorly.

It has a freezer compartment across the top and vegetable keeper drawers at the bottom and the usual shelves in between. This is basically the same design as the refrigerator my parents bought in 1937. How is that for swift progress?

The freezer compartment ought to be at the bottom, and the shelves above it, so I can reach them easier. I open that freezer door maybe twice a day, while I'm opening the big door a dozen times.

If a jar of mayo is hiding on a lower shelf of this new fridge, to find it I've got to bend way over and look back in there with my head almost upside down. To reach the rear of the shelf to fetch the jar, I've either got to squat like a baseball catcher, or get down on my knees.

Assuming my joints continue to deteriorate at the present rate, within another two years, I won't be able to use the bottom two shelves of this expensive icebox.

If I had the money I'd design my own refrigerator for the old house. It would be built-in, and cover one entire wall. It would have six doors of clear glass. They would look like the doors on the frozen food cases at the supermarket, except the door bottoms would be waist high.

I want all those doors because no shelf behind them would be deeper than 12 inches.

With that arrangement I'd be a housekeeper who'd never again have to look upside down into a refrigerator to find a jar of mayonnaise.